


Stardust

by Daenys the Dreamer (lovely_ericas)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22034224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovely_ericas/pseuds/Daenys%20the%20Dreamer
Summary: He wasted the whole rest of a lovely day wrestling with himself. He ought not to go, surely it was a trap or the ravings of a mad man. But if there was even a chance that Aegon lived, how could he possibly not go? He turned about in circles, never fully reaching a decision but as midnight crept by, he found himself walking the dark streets of Pentos as he had never walked them at the hour.In which Jon Connington becomes a father.
Relationships: Jon Connington & Aegon VI Targaryen
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Stardust

**Author's Note:**

> For Stella

Jon Connington had never expected to be a father. It wasn’t something that gave him grief exactly, to be a father you needed a wife and Jon had no need for a wife. Well, there were other ways but all would have been more odious to him than a wife. He had made his peace with it. 

When he’d been younger and much more foolish, he’d wondered at the gods’ mistake in fashioning him so perfectly for his silver prince and not the other way round. But later he realized how much he would have hated being a wife. On some deeper level, he had also known he would have been unhappy as a woman and was always grateful he wasn’t one. He had been so violently jealous of Elia Martell at first that he hadn’t thought about what it would be like to be Rhaegar’s wife. Sharing his bed yes, but subject to the whims and rages of a crazy and racist old man too. To have to sit and do something odious like sewing while he got to be with Rhaegar? That he didn’t envy. Elia had never had the joy of sparring with her silver prince on a practice field, could not ride with him for hours at a time until they both flung themselves from the saddle with exhaustion and delight, had never stood looking down at the view from the top of Griffin’s Roost with the one most dear to her. Those pleasures had been his alone.

Even when he’d been forced from his post by Aerys Targaryen, lost his title, his inheritance, exiled from his home, he had been hopeful. When the king died, Rhaegar would send for him. When the king died, when the king died.

How foolish he had been! 

He had put all these thoughts to rest long ago. Buried his love with the corpse of Rhaegar Targaryen. 

Never had he thought to see Rhaegar again. Nor, though he thought of them less, had he ever thought to see again little Rhaenys or baby Aegon or Elia herself.

It would have surprised him less, truly, to be hailed on the street by Viserys Targaryen and his little sister, the girl Daenerys that Queen Rhaella had died birthing. 

He looked again at the worn little paper in his hand. Unfolded it and read again the words that he had already memorized.

_The conqueror has come again. The father died but the son lives on._

The little girl who’d brought it had had a time of it giving it to him. He’d thought her a beggar, pleading for a coin. When he’d told her to be gone, he had no coin, she kept after him and he’d thought her a street urchin who might knife him for the coin he would not give her.

Finally she’d tripped and grabbed at his boot and when he bent down to pull her off, she slipped a little paper in his hand and whispered, “The Dragon, ser! Come to the Tears of the Earth at the hour of the bat!”

That was odd enough and they were being watched. Beggars were not usually so persistent and street urchins were not usually so obvious. They were a spectacle.

The girl shouted. “Thank you, my good man!” She waved a gold coin in the air eagerly that Jon knew he had never given her. Faces turned away, nothing worth seeing now. 

_The dragon? What did that mean_ , he wondered. He had not heard someone speak of the hour of the bat in years. He opened his fist and looked down to see a scrap of paper.

He read the words written there. It took not a second for him to understand what was being said in few words. Yet he read the words again and again.

He thought of the messenger then. _Rhaenys, she would have been around her age now wouldn’t she?_ He had not had such a thought ever, had not allowed himself to. And Aegon. He had held Aegon in his arms before the babe was even presented before the Seven and the High Septon. 

He remembered the warm, soft feel of a baby in his arms. Purple eyes just like his father’s looking up at Jon. He’d been honored to hold him, sitting on the bed beside Elia, Rhaegar looking down at them both. 

But it had been Rhaegar’s talk of how they would teach the little prince to ride, to harp, to fight that Jon had held close to his heart. Oh he’d known that meant Arthur Dayne more than him but the thought of the two of them teaching him, like they were both his fathers, that had made his soft heart stir.

That Aegon might have survived, well, it made him wary and hopeful both. Hopeful because a part of him had died at the news of Rhaegar and his children and Elia’s deaths. The deaths hadn’t happened all at the same time of course but by the time the news reached Jon, he’d learned of it all at once. But wary too because why was he only hearing about Aegon’s survival now, when Aegon must be near six now. Why had he been left to waste his time in the Golden Company? In Myles’ tender care, yes, but still time wasted while Aegon lived.

He wasted the whole rest of a lovely day wrestling with himself. He ought not to go, surely it was a trap or the ravings of a mad man. But if there was even a chance that Aegon lived, how could he possibly not go? He turned about in circles, never fully reaching a decision but as midnight crept by, he found himself walking the dark streets of Pentos as he had never walked them at the hour.

He stood at the edge of the square watching Tears of the Earth. Jon had not spent much time in this part of the city. During the day, Tears of the Earth was very loud and very noisy, filled with people shopping, merchants peddling and was a favorite target of pickpockets. 

The fountain was the only light in the square, candles burning on its rim. The only sound was the whooshing of water as it cascaded down the eyes and through the hands of the figurehead at the top.

What am I doing, Jon thought again. He strode closer and bent to trail a hand through the water.

“Ser.” Came a quiet voice.

Jon jumped and spun around, sending water droplets all down the front of a hooded man now standing before him.

“Who are you?” Jon asked, putting a hand to his sword and remembering the dagger tucked in his boot.

The figure ignored his question. “Come. I am to take you to the boy.”

Well, it was hard to mistake that. A dragon or a conqueror might mean any number of things here in Pentos but the boy could only mean Aegon.

Surely.

Jon followed his guide through an increasingly narrow and confusing set of streets. Hours he felt sure had passed and though he couldn’t be sure, he thought they had turned more than once including circles. After a long stretch though a terrible slum, Jon’s hooded silent guide led him through the back gate of a huge garden and up to an enormous manse. 

Jon ought to have been relieved, seeing it. After all, Aegon could have wanted for nothing here. Yet he felt uneasy, somehow he would have been more comforted to find the little prince in a shabby cottage. But what nonsense, only in songs did stablehands protect princes from the evil searching for them. Aegon’s protectors doubtless had some motive for sheltering him or sought some recompense but what did Jon care what it was so long as Aegon was alive and well.

It was in a dark study that his guide stopped him and lit lamps around the room. Jon thought to ask who he was waiting for but deemed himself unlikely to receive an answer.

The door swung open. Quietly but by now Jon heard each and every tiny sound. An enormous man stepped through. He too moved like Jon’s guide, quiet almost graceful.

“I am Magister Illyrio. I trust you are well, Jon Connington.” He said. He settled himself down into a heavy, plush chair behind a desk.

Jon ignored the pleasantry. “Where is he?” He demanded. “How did you find him?”

“Ah.” Magister Illyrio waved an arm at Jon’s guide who vanished out of the room. “Yes, you will want to see him, immediately. He is sleeping. Children usually are at this hour. I’ll send someone to fetch him awake shortly.” 

Even as the fat man said this, Jon could hear the sounds of the house waking up, lights being lit, fires being made, floors being washed. He glanced at the small window above the desk. Pink was washing in. It was nearly morning.

“As to the how. The boy’s mother did not trust the king with the safety of her son. Her uncle and the valiant Ser Arthur Dayne had been taken from her and there was only the young Lannister to guard herself, her children, and the king. She feared the rebels might take King’s Landing and take her son hostage or worse have him put to death to ensure their victory. She approached Lord Varys and Varys, knowing of my connections, arranged for Prince Aegon to be spirited safely away on a merchant vessel to Pentos and a little tanner’s boy was smuggled up to the Red Keep to play at being prince.”

“Elia didn’t do the same for Rhaenys?” Jon challenged. 

Magister Illyrio covered his face with his hands. “We did not anticipate Rhaenys or her mother being subject to the same danger as Aegon. They were female. Who would wish to harm them? A tragic and terrible miscalculation.” He uncovered his face and there almost looked to be tears in his eyes.

“I was foolish, you see. I thought my help would put the Princess Elia in my debt. I wanted to be Maester of Coin. I did not see any harm truly but what was the harm in soothing a mother’s fears? Elia would have peace of mind and I would be thought well of. It seemed an ideal arrangement. The war, the Lannisters, well, you know the rest.”

Jon gave a quick jerk of his head. It made a sick kind of sense but he had to see Aegon before he believed it.

“Why wait so long to contact me?” He asked, hoping desperation hadn’t crept into his voice.

Magister Illyrio wrung his hands. “He is still so young! I confess I have grown quite fond of him. I have no wish to tell him the sad truths of his family story so soon. Perhaps you are better suited to tales of Prince Rhaegar.”

A bird chirped outside the small window. There was the sound of a woman weeping coming from deeper in the house.

A knock at the door brought the magister to his feet. Jon touched his scabbard.

At Illyrio’s “Enter” a grey haired woman holding a little boy’s hand came into the room. Jon forgot her at once, eyes only for the solemn, yawning little boy clutching her hand.

“Aegon?” Jon asked, dropping to his knees. The little boy nodded, puzzled, looking first at his nurse then the magister and finally at Jon again.

He had a crop of silvery blond curls and rather blue eyes. Jon peered closer. Perhaps purple if you drew nearer. 

“Who are you?” The little boy asked in a small but imperious voice.

“This is Lord Connington, Aegon. He was a dear friend of your father’s.” Magister Illyrio broke in.

The boy frowned. “But I thought.” He began.

Jon reached out to grasp his other hand, gently. “You thought what?” He asked just as softly. 

“I thought I didn’t have a mother and father anymore, just uncles.” He said, frowning in concentration.

Jon noticed long eyelashes and then a little dimple like Elia’s.

“Your father is dead.” He agreed, swallowing hard. “But if you’ll allow me, I’ll pledge myself to your service and your crown. I look after you in place of your father.”

Aegon nodded and shook Jon’s hand solemnly.

Magister Illyrio began to speak of plans but Jon didn’t hear him. His face was fixed on Aegon’s, his hand clutching his.

_I failed the father, I will not fail the son._


End file.
